I’m Going to San Jose

Tomorrow I am head­ing to Heathrow to catch a plane for San Jose. No, I’m not head­ing to the CCIE Lab at RTP ( I sure wish I was though ). I am head­ing to join up with a boggle of blog­gers and to spend two days hav­ing vendors tell me about their products for the GestaltIT Tech Field Day.

Why ?

That’s exactly what I asked myself when first approached. Why would I travel so far to meet a bunch of geeks ? Answer: Writing takes a more time than you think and it can be a lonely hobby. I could use some com­pany and some inspir­a­tion, a little more ‘eth­er­eal’ than ‘mind’ if you like.

I am always look­ing for ideas on what to write about. Most of my ideas are drawn from from my work­ing envir­on­ment. My typ­ical work day involves research­ing, read­ing, learn­ing and writ­ing about Network Designs and Infrastructure Strategy. I am a Network Architect for a medium to large sized net­work, and I am part of a team that con­stantly changes, add, sub­tracts and mod­i­fies the IT Infrastructure. Because of time con­straints and my loc­a­tion, I rarely meet vendors or resellers, and am unable to attend brief­ings and other vendor events.

So, this whole thing is some­thing new. So here what I’m expecting:

• meet up with a bunch of people who have the same hobby as me — blogging
• Spend two days tour­ing around San Jose look­ing at tech­no­logy — what’s not to love about that!
• My first trip to the USA — I have trav­elled quite a bit, both for busi­ness and per­son­ally but never been to the USA. Something new.
• A hol­i­day — yeah, weird, I know. But still it would be good break from my nor­mal life. They say “any change is as good as hol­i­day”, I’ll be test­ing that out.

But the most import­ant thing to me will be learn­ing some­thing new.

Full Disclosure: What’s to Know ?

First, there is no edit­or­ial con­trol or oblig­a­tion to be nice. I will be stick­ing to my Blogging Ethics that I have pre­vi­ously set out.

Second, I am not being paid to attend but my travel expenses are paid for. In fact, as a contract/​freelance worker, I am out of pocket for the four work­ing days I will spend trav­el­ling and attending.

Experience sug­gests that vendors will likely turn up with some amount of pens, t-​​shirts, and other knick knacks but you would typ­ic­ally get that at any vendor event. Lets face it, ten bucks of mar­ket­ing toys isn’t really gonna sway your opinion.

Relevance and Twitter Flooding

You can fol­low this jour­ney on Twitter http://​twit​ter​.com/​e​t​herealmind

Or fol­low the hashtag #TechFieldDay at http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23techfieldday
to see all the Twitter out­put from the event. Or you can instantly fol­low all the blog­gers on Twitter that are attend­ing the event with fol­low­ing link:

http://​twit​ter​.com/​T​e​c​h​F​i​e​l​d​D​a​y​/​t​f​d​1​-attendees

Warning: It looks like I am the only Networking per­son going so you may not know about these bloggers.

Road Map

So here is the map agenda whatever for the event, and I have put a list of the com­pan­ies who are spon­sor­ing just after that. If any­one has any ques­tions they would like me to ask then get in con­tact or email myether­e­al­mind — at _​_​ gmail-​​com.

Blogger Tech Day Road Trip.(Click for a full size image)

Looking Forward

I’m really look­ing for­ward to this event. I don’t get to meet many people or attend many events, and the oppor­tun­ity to meet a bunch of really smart people is quite daunt­ing. I expect to learn heaps and have my eyes opened to loads of news tech­no­logy. Love that.

It’s gonna be a great break from work­ing for a living!!

Sponsors

Supporters

Although the fol­low­ing spon­sors will not be present­ing, they have offered to provide sup­port for other por­tions of the event (PARTY!):

FAQ and more information

Gestalt IT Tech Field Day information:

• Attendee Information and Attendee List
• Sponsor Information and Sponsor List
• FAQ

Bloggers

=====================

Name: Rich Brambley

Blog: VM /​ETC

Blog: Gestalt IT

Twitter: RBrambley

Present at HP TechDay: Yes

=====================

Name: Carlo Costanzo

Blog: VMware Info

Twitter: CCostan

Present at HP TechDay: No

=====================

Name: Chris Evans

Blog: The Storage Architect

Blog: Gestalt IT

Twitter: ChrisMEvans

Present at HP TechDay: No

=====================

Name: Greg Ferro

Blog: EtherealMind

Blog: Gestalt IT

Twitter: EtherealMind

Present at HP TechDay: No

=====================

Name: Robin Harris

Blog: StorageMojo

Twitter: StorageMojo

Present at HP TechDay: Yes

=====================

Name: Rod Haywood

Blog: Musings of Rodos

Twitter: Rodos

Present at HP TechDay: No

=====================

Name: John Hickson

Blog: Studio Sysadmins

Twitter: StudioSystems

Present at HP TechDay: No

=====================

Name: Greg Knieriemen

Blog: Storage Monkeys

Twitter: Knieriemen

Present at HP TechDay: Yes

=====================

Name: John Obeto

Blog: Absolutely Windows

Twitter: JohnObeto

Present at HP TechDay: Yes

=====================

Name: Devang Panchigar

Blog: StorageNerve

Blog: Gestalt IT

Twitter: StorageNerve

Present at HP TechDay: Yes

=====================

Name: Nigel Poulton

Blog: Ruptured Monkey

Twitter: NigelPoulton

Present at HP TechDay: Yes

=====================

Name: Bas Raayman

Blog: Renegade’s Technical Diatribe

Twitter: BasRaayman

Present at HP TechDay: No

=====================

Name: Ed Saipetch

Blog: Breathing Data

Blog: Gestalt IT

Twitter: EdSai

Present at HP TechDay: No

=====================

Name: Simon Seagrave

Blog: TechHead

Twitter: Kiwi_​Si

Present at HP TechDay: Yes

=====================

Name: Rick Vanover

Blog: Virtualization Review

Blog: Tech Republic

Twitter: RickVanover

Present at HP TechDay: No

=====================

To fol­low all the blog­gers on Twitter that are attend­ing the event, please use the fol­low­ing link.

http://​twit​ter​.com/​T​e​c​h​F​i​e​l​d​D​a​y​/​t​f​d​1​-attendees

To fol­low me on Twitter, please use the fol­low­ing link.

http://​twit​ter​.com/​e​t​herealmind

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